Morning Light
by shelter
Summary: One-Shot. Post-War. So what do you do when everything's over? Tabitha, Cynthia, Yuma - and life after the war.


**MORNING LIGHT**

_Thanks to Shiek, Weird D, Evil_Kenshin & Tempest from Animesuki for all their input & edits. They helped produce this final draft._

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**Rating: **T

**Characters: **Tabitha, Cynthia, Yuma

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_For all Claymore Writers. Who are keeping the fandom alive._

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**7.**  
They choose a town in the South for obvious reasons: the weather, the many nameless towns they have never visited before, the smooth countryside uninterrupted by mountains or ridges. But mostly because the South has been the least affected by the war. Yoma still linger in isolated hamlets. Trekking across the browned landscape as summer dies away all around them, they find too many abandoned farms.

One of these becomes their new home: a three-house dwelling commanding several fields greyed out with rotting barley crop. They all agree this place might be temporary, but Tabitha knows that this is it, that they will not shift from this place, that this will be where they settle. Everything looks almost perfect, she thinks to herself. Cynthia enjoys the view. Yuma is content enough to have a place over her head.

As autumn edges its way onto the landscape, they strip one of the houses clean of its fittings, extend the other into a barn where they will keep animals and, hopefully, store future harvests. Tabitha goes on daily trips to see the surroundings, to see if there's anyone in the other farms. She calls them _skirmishes _– to which Cynthia and Yuma laugh. But Tabitha brings her Claymore anyway.

On these trips, she can see miles and miles of tea-coloured fields. She gets reminded of dried blood on leather. But she doesn't tell the others.

Yuma gathers everything left behind by the previous owners into one house. Cynthia adds a touch of decorative flair: pine needles to freshen the stale interior, poppies on the windowsill and cleaned blankets from the stores. She arranges the three beds around the fireplace. Just like before, she says.

Yet on the first night with the beds, they eye each other before putting out the fire for the night. The feathered cotton is too soft for Tabitha, and the timber walls surround their shadows like a protective elder sister. Cynthia almost asks who should take first watch. Tabitha almost volunteers. And then Yuma smiles – as if she sees something and is helpless to intervene – and shrugs, and then climbs into her bed. The rest follow.

When she thinks everyone is asleep, Tabitha steps out of the bed and finds a wall to rest her head.

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**6.**  
In mid-winter, Tabitha believes the nearby towns have recovered from the war's fallout, so she takes Yuma with her on a visit for supplies.

They see many refugees, many more unmarked graves. Still under a light drizzle, the market is crowded, people get on with lives and parts of the town seem to be reconstructing, like new flesh over old wounds.

But even under their cloaks, townspeople identify them almost immediately. Few are willing to do business with them. By the time they collect all the necessary supplies for the next few weeks, a group of young men mill around nearby, many with sticks. And for the first time in a long while, Tabitha's arm reflexively loiters to her Claymore. But Yuma gently eases her fingers away from it.

Then somebody throws a stone. Yuma catches it perfectly. She holds it, her hands clawed around its shape. Some of the townspeople stop to watch.

"Yuma –" Tabitha says.

Yuma lets the stone spill to the ground. Later, when they walk out of town, Tabitha takes Yuma's hand – the hand that caught the stone –and feels it, rock hard and unrelenting. Tabitha undoes Yuma's fingers, and Yuma's yoki prickles underneath her touch, like wind on bare skin.

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**5.**  
Cynthia takes command of the homestead. Neither Tabitha or Yuma object to her ordering and moving what little personal items they have around. To Tabitha, it seems assumed.

Cynthia accuses Tabitha of being too thin. She compares her to a stick, invisible to men. So every other night when they eat, Tabitha gets the largest portions and always gets extras heaped on her. She always politely resists seconds, then accepts them later. She wants to see Cynthia smile more.

And she knows how much effort Cynthia takes to keep them well-fed. She knows how Cynthia actually takes the trouble to cook, to put something together, to take the eggs, wild-berries and white meat from the supplies to do something. Cynthia enforces the meals, makes them eat every other day even when they aren't hungry. Yuma jokes Cynthia is making them all fatter. At this comment, Cynthia actually blushes.

But when Cynthia is absent, Yuma tells Tabitha:

"She's trying a bit too hard to be Miria."

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**4.**  
When the snow begins to melt, both Cynthia and Yuma see to the fields. Tabitha barters the remainder of their goodwill gifts from Rabona for barley and millet seed. She borrows oxen from nearby farmers who are modestly grateful for her patrols. They say she keeps the bandits and monsters away.

They separate the seed into bags, and keep some in store in case their attempt at harvest fails. Cynthia chooses a patch of land and with a torch burns it of weeds till it looks like a smudge of pure black against the light germinating green of spring. Yuma spreads out the ash, and stabs her Claymore in the middle of the field with a cloak over it.

When Tabitha goes to help, Cynthia and Yuma refuse to let her. They tell her to see to the animals instead, and tease that she's getting popular with their neighbours. Tabitha doesn't insist to help, because she knows they will relent if she does. Instead, she tells herself she will help them with harvest. Instead, she roams far and wide, flinching supplies and tools from abandoned farms.

When she doesn't roam, she watches over Cynthia and Yuma: their naked backs speckled with soil, Cynthia's ordering Yuma, as they struggle in the wake of the zig-zagging oxen.

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**3.**  
On the anniversary of the fall of the Organization, Cynthia prepares a feast: apples, game meat, jealously-saved wine. There's even soup. She sets the meal a large dark-wood table, and polishes their swords, who have pride of place by the fireplace.

They dine well into the night. Cynthia gives the largest chunk of the meat to Tabitha. Yuma says the barley and millet are growing well in two separate fields. Tabitha says at least one farmer now greets her by name.

Only when all the food is gone, they realize nobody has touched the wine. Not wanting to waste the moment, they pour it out over the table. Watching the purple stream mar the wooden finish like yoma blood, they utter the names of those gone before them: Miria, Helen, Deneve, Clare, Dietrich, Veronica –

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**2.**  
Tabitha knows Cynthia and Yuma have nightmares. Cynthia, especially, turns in her bed, bursting into sobs, wailing like a little child. Sometimes, Tabitha waits with an arm around her, to comfort her for hours while her tears flood the spaces where their bodies touch.

Yuma, on the other hand, wakes up shaking, shouting Clare's name. When she does, Tabitha and Cynthia have to tell her: "It's not your fault. She chose to awaken." And Yuma always shakes her head. Tabitha has to repeat everything to her again, Yuma's grip on her wrist so strong it feels like a dead man is pulling at her.

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**1.**  
When she gets nightmares, Tabitha doesn't trouble the others. She wakes up, picks up her Claymore and leaves the house. She walks as long it takes for the fear, the bad thoughts, to go away: a minute, or several hours, sometimes crossing over their land, or further into the forests and lower hills nearby. She lets her yoki lead her. She does not open her eyes, because she is afraid to forget Miria's face. But when she does open them, the edges of the horizon are starting to turn purple. In the morning light, she knows, there are no such things as Ghosts.

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**0.**  
Instead, Tabitha returns to the four walls of the farm. Morning light, weak and bruised, forms symbols on her crumpled blanket. She puts her Claymore aside, sits on her bed and looks at the others. Cynthia sleeps with her back to the window. Yuma with an arm slapped on her face. And Tabitha thinks: this is what I'm living for.

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_END_

Enjoyed writing this. It was one of the ideas hanging around in my head for quite awhile. After a one year detour writing Bleach, I think I should be writing Claymore once again.


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